As soon as the memory drifted closer, she got the familiar sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Ordinarily she’d push it away as hard as she could, back in its box and snap the lid shut. But today, she felt so good she thought she might just risk allowing herself a few minutes to think about what had happened.

To move on, she knew she had to revisit the past in an effort to construct an organised timeline that might help her now she was feeling better.

---

Markus had reassured her more than once during the coach trip to Manchester that he had already organised temporary accommodation for the two of them.

‘Where?’ she’d asked. ‘A hotel or an apartment?’

He had laughed. ‘Take a chill pill, Holly.’ He’d shaken his head. ‘I had you down as a little more of a maverick rather than the worrying, nervous type.’

‘I’m not worrying or nervous,’ she’d lied. ‘I’m just asking, is all.’

He had smiled and closed his eyes again. ‘Trust me. Everything will be fine.’

The cold rain had lashed their faces as they’d alighted from the coach at Manchester bus station. Reversing beeps and vehicle headlights had lit up the darkness and showered them with a blaze of artificial brightness that Holly had found herself turning away from.

Markus had brought a holdall and a rucksack, the same as Holly had, and they’d waited in turn behind the other passengers, ready to pull their bags from the under-vehicle luggage stowage.

A scruffy-looking man in his twenties had been waiting for them as they walked into the foyer. Markus had introduced him simply as Tyrone. He’d nodded towards Holly without looking at her and then handed Markus a hand-scrawled note with some directions, and what looked to Holly like timings.

‘Everything’s on there,’ he’d said, his eyes darting around the station. ‘You’ve got my number, yeah?’

‘Yes,’ Markus had agreed, and glanced at his watch. ‘We are supposed to meet Karla here… five minutes ago, actually.’

‘I know nothing about that, man,’ Tyrone had mumbled. ‘See you back here at eight in the morning, yeah?’

‘Fine,’ Markus had said confidently. ‘Thank you.’

When Tyrone had disappeared, Holly grasped Markus’s arm. ‘Where’s this woman who’s supposed to be meeting us? What if she doesn’t turn up… where will we stay?’

‘Holly, Holly!’ he’d drawled. ‘Relax. She will show, I promise.’

She did show. Half an hour late.

It was after eleven at night and the coach arrivals seemed to have slowed to nothing. Apart from a steward in a high-vis jacket, it appeared that Holly and Markus were the only two people still waiting.

Suddenly a tall, impoverished-looking young woman in jeans and high heels, with stringy black hair, had appeared out of nowhere and walked quickly towards them.

‘Is that her?’ Holly had asked, hardly able to keep the hope out of her voice.

‘I don’t know.’ Markus had shrugged. ‘I have never met her.’

An uneasy feeling had gripped Holly’s stomach yet again, but the woman was closer now, so she’d had to keep her thoughts to herself.

‘Markus?’ the woman had said in a broad Manchester accent. Her face was plastered with greasy-looking make-up, her eyes heavily painted with eyeliner, but her dry, chapped lips had been left with no colour.

‘Yes, and this is my friend Holly.’ Markus had smiled but the woman didn’t return it. ‘You are Karla, I presume?’

‘Yeah.’ She’d checked her watch. ‘Look, I need to be somewhere else in twenty minutes, so we’d best grab a cab.’

‘Where are we staying?’ Markus had asked once they’d shoved their luggage in the boot of the cab and were on their way. ‘Is it an apartment, or a house?’

Karla had turned around in the front passenger seat and looked back at him like he’d fallen from the sky.

‘Dunno, mate. I just do as I’m told.’ A smirk had played around the corners of her dry mouth as she’d added playfully, ‘Might be a five-bed mansion in Altrincham for all I know.’

It turned out not to be a mansion in an affluent area of Manchester.

The cab had turned suddenly from the brightly lit main road and progressed slowly down a warren of dingy side streets. Holly had spotted dubious-looking groups of hooded characters clustered together in the dense shadows.

She’d gripped Markus’s upper arm and squeezed to signify her nervousness, but he had stared out of his own window and hadn’t reacted when she hissed, ‘I thought your friend had a decent place for us to stay?’

When the cab finally came to a standstill, Markus paid him in cash.

‘It’s that one, with the broken glass.’ Karla had pointed to the most run-down house in the middle of a terrace of five. ‘See you around, yeah?’

Without answering her, Holly had pushed the door of the cab shut and the heavy black vehicle had pulled away.

‘Markus, I don’t want to stay—’

‘Holly, please,’ he’d said sharply, his feet scuffing on the wet pavement. ‘We just need to get through the next couple of days, that’s all. Unless you’ve got money for a swanky hotel, that is.’

When he snapped, it unnerved her. She’d never known Markus anything other than smiling, joking, reassuring in his manner. Maybe he was also feeling unsure about how safe his arrangements were. Earlier, he’d certainly implied that everything had been taken care of satisfactorily.

‘This will all be behind you if you impress my friend,’ he said simply.

She’d waited, but as usual, no further details were forthcoming. She was getting sick and tired of hearing about this mystery friend who apparently held their future in his palm.

Markus had rapped twice at the peeling front door with the boarded-up panel, but there had been no reply. He’d shrugged at her and then turned the handle and pushed… and the door had creaked open, catching on the rucked-up carpet inside.

Holly had followed him into the house, having decided she really had no choice but to front it out. That was definitely what Markus was doing. He might appear confident, but she’d noticed his tense jaw and the odd exaggerated blink.

She’d just have to look at it as the start of her new adventure, she told herself for the umpteenth time.

As Markus closed the door behind them, a figure had appeared in the doorway of what Holly presumed would be the front room in a normal, functioning household.

It was at that precise moment, when she’d looked into the man’s lifeless eyes, that she had realised this first night was probably going to be a far worse experience than she had previously imagined.